Plants need four essential things to grow: light, water, carbon dioxide (from the air) and nutrients. Each of these things work together to promote vigorous growth and increase yield. The catalyst motivating everything is the amount of light a plant receives. Energy from light is captured by the plant and used to process the carbon, nutrients and water. When plants receive more light, they need more of the other three elements and when they receive less light, they need less of the other three elements as well.

When growing cannabis, it is important to closely monitor everything that is added to the plant, this includes the type of water used, how much of each nutrient is added and anything else you may introduce directly to the plant. In this post, we will focus on the importance of closely monitoring the nutrients added to a plant, but the same theory can be applied to anything else - remember, if not purified, water contains minerals and nutrients that may not be accounted for in your nutrient schedule and that could have drastic impacts.